Syria

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said late on Friday that Turkey would retaliate against any steps aimed at countering its efforts to fight terrorism, in response to the announcement of possible U.S. sanctions against Turkey.

President Donald Trump’s administration is set to impose economic sanctions on Ankara, potentially as early as this week, for its incursion into northern Syria, one of the few levers the United States still has over NATO-ally Turkey.

Earlier Sunday, US President Donald Trump and British PM Theresa May said Russia and Syria were responsible for "heart-breaking human suffering" in Eastern Ghouta. With the support of Russian warplanes, the Syrian military has advanced on several fronts, retaking control of farms and villages, a military source told state media.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said Sunday his forces must push on with their campaign to retake the besieged enclave of Eastern Ghouta from rebels, despite mounting international calls to end the bloodshed.

Tawfik Chamaa, a Geneva-based Syrian doctor with the Syria-focused Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations (UOSSM), a network of Syrian doctors, said 150 people were confirmed dead and the number was growing. "The majority were civilians, women and children trapped in underground shelters," he told Reuters.

A chemical attack on a rebel-held town in eastern Ghouta has killed dozens of people, medical services reported, and Washington said the reports – if confirmed – would demand an immediate international response.

Iran’s involvement in Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad in a nearly seven-year-old civil war - including the deployment of Iran-backed forces near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights - has alarmed Israel, which has said it would counter any threat.

Anti-aircraft fire downed an Israeli warplane returning from a bombing raid on Iran-backed positions in Syria on Saturday in the most serious confrontations yet between Israel and Iranian-backed forces based across the border.

"With the start of the political process in its most active phase, foreign armed forces will withdraw from Syrian territory," Putin said, without specifying which foreign forces.

President Vladimir Putin held a rare meeting with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad on Thursday and said the situation in Syria is now favourable for the beginning of a "political process" which would lead to the withdrawal of foreign forces.

It found no evidence that the Russian strike had deliberately targeted the market, but said “this attack may amount to the war crime of launching indiscriminate attacks resulting in death and injury to civilians”, the first time it has explicitly implicated Moscow in possible war crimes.

Air strikes by Russia and a U.S.-led coalition killed civilians in Syria on a large scale last year, while the Assad government carried out unlawful chemical weapon attacks in rebel-held eastern Ghouta, U.N. war crimes investigators said on Tuesday.

Trump tweeted earlier that "missiles will be coming" in response to the alleged chemical attack in Syria and added that Russia should “get ready”.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said Wednesday that US President Donald Trump holds Russia and Syria responsible for a suspected chemical attack in Douma and said all options were still on the table for a US response.

The punitive raid did not draw US forces any deeper into Syria's civil war, but nor did it dissuade Syria or its Russian and Iranian backers from pursuing their campaign against rebel groups.

President Donald Trump warned Monday that Damascus and Moscow may be forced to pay for the latest alleged chemical weapons atrocity of the Syrian civil war, promising a decision on military action within hours.

But if implemented it would achieve all the main objectives Turkey announced when it launched its assault on Oct. 9: control of a strip of Syria more than 30 km (20 miles) deep, with the Kurdish militia, once U.S. allies, obliged to pull out.

Turkey agreed on Thursday to pause its offensive in Syria for five days to let Kurdish forces withdraw from a “safe zone” Ankara had sought to capture, in a deal hailed by the Trump administration and cast by Turkey as a complete victory.

The bombing was the biggest intervention by Western countries against Assad and his superpower ally Russia, but the three countries said the strikes were limited to Syria’s chemical weapons capabilities and not aimed at toppling Assad or intervening in the civil war.

Western powers said on Saturday their missile attacks struck at the heart of Syria’s chemical weapons program, but the restrained assault appeared unlikely to halt Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s progress in the 7-year-old civil war.

Duke's Zion Williamson (1) drives to the basket against North Carolina during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament in Charlotte, N.C., Friday, March 15, 2019. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)

Members of the Bolivarian National Guard loyal to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro run under a cloud of tear gas after being repelled with rifle fire by guards supporting Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido in Caracas, April 30, 2019.